For 25+ years I’ve been a community networker & group process consultant. I believe that people today are starved for community—for a greater sense of belonging and connection—and I’ve dedicated my life to making available as widely as possible the tools and inspiration of cooperative living. I’m on the road half the time teaching groups consensus, meeting facilitation, and how to work with conflict. This blog is a collection of my observations and musings along the way.

Tuesday, May 29, 2018

As a
professional facilitator one of my most difficult tasks is working with
individuals who are out of step with the rest of the group and feel
strongly about the validity of their views.

Even
though I do my best to make sure that everyone is heard, when there is
little to no resonance with the outlier's views it is depressingly
common for them to claim that I have been biased in how I facilitated
the conversation—that if I hadn't skewed things there would have been
more support for their ideas. (Actually their thinking proceeds in
reverse: the fact that the group didn't respond well to their thinking
is evidence, in their eyes, that I must have skewed things,
because that's a more palatable explanation then that the group heard
what they had to say and the earth didn't move.)While
I try to be careful to make sure that outliers have been heard (by
giving back a summary of what they said until they report that I got
it), a complicating factor is that I'm an active facilitator, who will
rein in repetition, redirect off-topic comments, and name any
disturbance in The Force. Commonly enough outliers have had a lifetime
to perfect their craft and they don't particularly appreciate my
cramping their style (for example, by limiting their opportunity to
repeat their views, or by not allowing them to hijack the topic on the
table to flog their agenda). They will conflate my active management of
the conversation with my being biased. When they are the main ones
acting out, it may look like I'm picking on them. Never mind that I told
them up front how I would facilitate and got their explicit buy-in to
do so.

[Caution:
This pattern does not obtain with all who find themselves in a minority
position: I am only describing the dynamics when it does.]Because
we're talking about humans, it's typically more attractive to blame
others for what's not working than to look in the mirror. So it's not
surprising that it plays out this way—yet awareness of the pattern
doesn't make it any more fun being the object of the outlier's
frustration.

Another way this plays out for the outlier is this: I've
been acting this way consistently and I never got push back about my
behavior until you (Laird) showed up. Because you are the different
element, the problem is you. You can follow how they got there, but
this simplistic analysis neglects to take into account how group members
may have been cowed by the outlier's behavior, to the point that
they're reluctant to voice objections—either about their views or their
delivery. Many people in cooperative groups are conflict averse and will
choose to suffer in silence rather than risk being in the outlier's
crosshairs. I'm not saying this is a good thing, but it happens.Ironically,
I could be the outlier's best friend in being heard—precisely because
I'm neutral on the issues and see it as my job to make sure that
everyone's views are being taken into account. This tends to be of
little solace, however, when the outlier's perspective is not
persuasive. When I summarize responses and the preponderance of opinion
slants away from the outlier's position, the outlier may question the
validity of my summary—rather than to reflect on what they may have
missed in their analysis. In
the extreme, the outlier may know ahead of time that their position on a
key issue is not widely shared and will strategically choose to skip
the meeting at which that issue is discussed and then weigh in after the
fact, expecting their late input to be honored—even though they have
completely sidestepped the concomitant responsibility to listen
respectfully to the views of others. Essentially they want their views
taken seriously but haven't extended the same courtesy to others. This
goes over about as well as a turd in the punch bowl.As
a facilitator, I'm caught among a handful of imperatives: a) protecting
everyone's right to be heard on the topic at hand; b) calling people on
their behavior when it's out of alignment with the group's process
agreements; c) naming what's happening, even when it's painful or
awkward; and d) trying to see that no one feels isolated, even when no
one else agrees with their position. If the outlier takes the view that
calling them on coloring outside the lines is a personal attack and will
only accept agreement as evidence of support, it can be damn near
impossible to deliver on all four imperatives.Unfortunately,
an outlier with their heels dug in comes across as someone who is both
holding the group back and doing so in pursuit of a personal agenda. A double whammy.
That is, they are not generally perceived as having the group's best
interest at heart—which may or not be the case. It is a common error in
logic for people (independent of whether they are in the majority or
alone in their perspective) to think: I know that I'm thinking of
what's best for the group; therefore those who think differently may be
doing so for suspect reasons. What's missing here is that reasonable
people can disagree about what's best for the group. In fact, in my
experience, it's rare that people don't have a way to tie their views to
common values. Typically, they have an novel way of interpreting common
values, or may be emphasizing one at the expense of another, but
there's almost always some legitimacy to their position.

I
have often pondered what this might look like from the outlier's point
of view. It amazes me how commonly outliers come across as unshakable in
the worthiness of their position—even in the face of overwhelming
evidence that no one (or very few) are persuaded by their thinking. How
does that work? Do they really believe that they alone can see the
truth? That everyone else is shallow in their thinking or misguided in
their analysis? While it's a possibility, I have rarely seen it play out
that way. It's much more likely that the outlier is off about
something than that everyone else is, yet it doesn't appear that that
even occurs to them as a possibility, and that seems off. How can
you agree that the best interests of the group is paramount and not
consider that possibility (even to the point of feeling threatened or
disrespected when I suggest it)?I
know If have to speak up about what I see (I can't let the threat of
awkwardness stop me from doing my job), yet I'm still working to find
better ways for that to land well with outliers. It's a tough nut.

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About Me

I’ve lived in intentional community for 41 years: 39 years at Sandhill Farm (a small, income-sharing community I helped found in 1974 in northeast Missouri), followed by 20 months at nearby Dancing Rabbit, an ecovillage started in 1997 with a core mission of modeling how to live a great life on a resource budget that’s only 10% of the US average. Today I live in Chapel Hill NC, where I’m trying to pioneer a new community with close friends.
For the last 28 years I’ve also been integrally involved with the Fellowship for Intentional Community—a North American network dedicated to providing the information and inspiration of cooperative living to the widest possible audience.
Recognizing the value of what is being learned in intentional communities about how to solve problems collaboratively and work constructively with conflict, I started a part-time career as a process consultant in 1987. Today, I’m on the road half the time conducting trainings, working with groups, and attending events all over the country.
Recreationally, my passions include celebration cooking, duplicate bridge, wilderness canoeing, and the New York Times Sunday crossword.